Obama is accused by the GOP and the financial goof balls on CNBC of making the stock market tank. The chart below (which I hope is readable) shows the market’s fall since its high in October 2007. I’ve also marked the week Obama was elected and the week he was inaugurated.
First of all, it’s clear that most of the fall came before his election. The pundits, of course, focus on the time since his election or inauguration.
In between the two, you’ll notice a slight uptick from its low of 741 (I’m using the S&P) and a high the first full week of 2009. It’s been down since then. The Wall St. apologists would have you believe that Obama’s economic plans have caused the downturn.
But, I, listening to CNBC all day, can tell you that few, if any, of the pundits at the time (not the CNBC faux journalists who think every uptick is the beginning of a huge rally), thought the Dec.-Jan. rally was the turning point. Often, they would describe this as a bear market rally, which is typical in an extended stock market decline. Often, severe overselling of securities causes a rally as bottom fishers look to take on some risk. Other such rallies occurred in the spring of 2008 and last July. Most of the analysts suggested that either we would go lower or continually test the bottom, which at that time was about 741 on the S&P. The prevailing wisdom is that we haven’t had the “capitulation” that marks the end of a bear market. Such capitulation is marked by a high volume decline followed by a high volume upswing. We haven’t had that yet.
As of this moment, we are at 685, or about another 7.5% of a downturn that, from its height of 1576, is down 56.5%.
Somehow, therefore, the market’s problems are Obama’s fault?